Yeah - Dagger's right, they are all stong enough to pull with, even the ARB.

The extremes of force Jeff is illustrating involve what happens if you put a heavy load ON TOP of the bumper, pushing it straight down.

This is relevent, as some pulls involve the nose of the recovery X being higher than the recovered rig, so the X's nose gets pushed down by the pull....not straight down with the full load as shown, maybe a matter of 45º though, which perhaps ~ halves those numbers....and, if the bumper is lifted, increasing those numbers proportionally, as the height obove the frame rails does increase the forces as leverage increases, etc.

W/o doing the math, raising the bumper 2" would have less affect than going from 45º - 90º pull angle (If 90º is straight down, and 180º was straight ahead, etc.)...but it would be a measurable difference.

So - as far as I can tell, ALL of the bumpers mentioned can pull at their rated loads...some have higher/lower ratings though.

The difference in abilities seem related more to other factors, like front or side impact resistance, approach angle, quality of finish, weld through vs weld on construction, aesthetics, preferences for hidden vs exposed winch mounts, welds vs bolts, etc.

Deer for example are a severe test of any bumper...as the bumpers are braced against a winch's pull rather than a deer's push, etc.



The X's frame horns are not rock's of Gibraltar, and when I lifted my bumper, I welded a brace between the horns to compensate for the leverage extra forces from the raised winch point relative to the frame horns.

Its held steady, with no sign of torqueing, but I noticed that my exposed horn ends are taking a beating in rock gardens...so I plan on getting around to boxing in the end of the exposed horns with a decent piece of angle iron I found.



I never got around to installing a plate from the bumper back to the leading front plate, and frankly, there's not a whole lot of vulnerable stuff between them given the horns and brace to shield them....but I might do one to the new angle iron back if I ever have enough free time again....

:rolleyes: